Category: From AA Agnostica

Five Years Old and Growing Stronger

Originally published in Our Primary Purpose,
the newsletter of the Ottawa Area Intergroup

Covid-19 helps Ottawa’s secular sobriety movement

Little did Michel D know when he started Ottawa’s first secular AA group, in early March 2016, that five years later there would be three weekly secular meetings on the calendar. And that a global pandemic might be helping to encourage both newcomers and old-timers alike to try a new and different Alcoholics Anonymous experience.

When Covid-19 shuttered doors to the rooms of AA, members started going online. And some have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore new approaches like secularism.

What is Secular AA? It’s a movement that seeks to widen our view so that all who suffer may discover long-term sobriety in AA regardless of their belief or lack of belief in a God.

“I already had 30 years of sobriety when I started that first secular meeting and it was still scary to go against the flow, and to try doing something outside the AA mainstream,” said Michel.

But as Ottawa’s secular movement celebrates it’s 5th anniversary, Michel can take pride in the idea that he and others are truly part of a growing global effort pushing AA to become an ever more inclusive fellowship, one that welcomes the suffering alcoholic no matter what their religious affiliation or belief system might be.

“With over 500 (secular) fellowships world-wide using the 12 Steps as a framework for recovery, there’s no denying the impact that AA founders Bill W and Dr. Bob have already had. And just as these far-reaching fellowships have reinterpreted the 12 Steps, AA must continue to do the same if it’s going to survive and stay relevant,” said Michel.

Like other so-called “special purpose groups” under the AA umbrella, secularism can be, for some, a polarizing notion, pitting believer against non-believer. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

“Our goal here in Ottawa is to be as open-minded as possible, so that anyone, no matter how they approach their sobriety, can feel at home in our midst. Our secular credo gives everyone the ability to freely express themselves, while asking that they offer the same courtesy to others in the discussion,” said Michel.

Andy Mc had almost 40 years of sobriety when he discovered Secular AA, and he’s convinced the pandemic played a role in opening the door to a whole new chapter of his recovery journey. If not by design, then perhaps by the grace of a Higher Power.

Last spring, Andy, who is retired and spends his time between Bracebridge and London, Ontario, was focused on trying to help his home group transition to virtual meetings. Unfortunately, his group did not survive the move online, so he went searching for alternatives.

“I wasn’t necessarily looking for a secular option when I googled AA meetings online. But a group in Florida, called OMAGOD – Our Mostly Agnostic Group of Drunks, caught my eye, so I decided to check it out. I really liked their approach, and after the novelty of going to a Florida-based meeting wore off, I decided to look for secular groups closer to home.”

That’s when he discovered Ottawa’s Secular Sobriety Group which meets Sunday night, online, at 7:30 pm. Now, almost a year into the pandemic, Andy is attending upwards of five secular meetings a week, mostly based out of Eastern Ontario. He also attends Ottawa’s Beyond Belief Secular Group, Thursday night, 7 pm.

“I’ve learned to tone it down over the years; at one time I could get into a pretty heated discussion with some members of the fellowship who I thought were a bit too rigid in their thinking. I just couldn’t let others try to tell me that I would only stay sober if I believed in God.”

Andy said what keeps him coming back to secular meetings is the free-thinking; he’s convinced that more and more members are taking advantage of online platforms to kick the tires on Secular AA.

“No doubt in my mind, Covid-19 and the endless list of online meetings all over the country, and the world, has cemented the ‘secular’ movement within AA. And I think that’s great. It’s given people like me who were feeling restless and disenfranchised a way to stay more engaged and connected to this amazing program.”

The AA tent is getting bigger

As recent as 2000, there were no more than 50 secular AA meetings across the globe. By the time the pandemic hit there were around 600. Now, a year later, there are easily more than 1,000 such meetings worldwide.

“It’s been most encouraging to see how quickly AA adapted to the new normal after Covid-19 arrived,” said Joe C, a leader in the Toronto secular movement, and a founder of the group Beyond Belief Agnostics & Freethinkers.

“We are seeing our numbers swell. Our Saturday discussion group is now attracting more than 100 participants. And it’s not only agnostics and atheists who are showing up. We have plenty of so-called believers who are also joining us. Some of them had simply walked away from AA. They weren’t mad, just fatigued, and simply looking for something new and different to fill the void.”

Joe points to the many and diverse AA special interest groups that have started over the past few decades. Groups for women, African Americans, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered people, young people, seniors, professionals, special needs people, Indigenous peoples, and many more.

“In the end, those who have moved away from the mainstream are simply doing what Bill W had wished for. He called it pioneering, and he insisted that AAs had to continue to go through the same pioneering efforts in order to keep the fellowship vital and relevant.”

For a PDF of the newsletter click on the image

The post Five Years Old and Growing Stronger first appeared on AA Agnostica.

God Problems

Chapter 12:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Betsy M.

My father got sober in AA in 1952. He drove two hours round trip to the nearest city to attend the only weekly meeting in his region. I was five, but I have no memories of my father as a drinker. He didn’t try to frighten us kids away from alcohol, but he did tell us that AA was the place to go if we ever “got into trouble” with booze. As far as I knew, my father had never lied to me, so in 1984 I took his advice. I was 37, and I had been unsuccessfully trying to control my drinking. At my first meeting, I felt hopeful. I realized that I could get sober in AA. Though I saw no one at that meeting who seemed “like me”, I identified with at least one thing each person said. After the meeting, a scary looking guy came up to me and said: “Just don’t drink, even if your ass falls off”. That I understood his warning as sage advice certainly speaks to how ready I was for AA.

In the small town where I got sober, I ran into God problems almost immediately. My first roadblock was The Big Book. I couldn’t stand it. It struck me as a self-help book for Christian men from my father’s generation. I am a woman, a feminist and an atheist who came of age in the 1960s, not the 1940s. The Book was not written with me in mind, and no matter how hard I tried to twist the language to make it fit, it didn’t.

The second roadblock was The Lord’s Prayer. One of my regular meetings closed with that prayer. At first, I didn’t recite the prayer, not because the words offended me, but because I don’t believe them. A few well-meaning people urged me to “fake it ‘til you make it”. I didn’t want to bring negative attention to myself, so I decided to conform. I felt in my gut that if I was going to keep coming to AA, which I absolutely had to do, I needed to avoid alienating myself from the people whose help I needed.

After my first anniversary, I got a sponsor. Like all the AA women I knew, her higher power was God. In fact, she had just converted to Catholicism. She was, fortunately, willing to allow me to work the Steps without trying to force me to define a higher power for myself. She told me not to worry, that she understood that “some of us take longer than others”. By the time I got to my 5th Step, I was trying to be opened-minded. I thought maybe I should give the higher power thing a try. I had met a lot of people who seemed happily sober. And while I was grateful to be sober, I was certainly not happy during those first couple of years.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

I began my exploration with a book of daily readings, consisting of an AA-related reflection, followed by a prayer. Although I tried to approach this sincerely, saying the prayer made me feel like a phony, so I gave it up. I also met with a professor of theology, a friend of a friend. She gave me interesting things to read, from many monotheist traditions, and we met once a month to discuss them. I found many of the writers intelligent and persuasive. Still, I was not persuaded. By my third year, I decided I had given God an honest try, and I returned to my former belief (or nonbelief). I didn’t share my decision with anyone because I didn’t know anyone I thought would accept it. I remember I felt lonely about that. I had a family and a demanding job. Otherwise, I might have looked outside my town for some meetings with like-minded women.

By the time I’d been sober six years, I was going to only one meeting a week. I appreciated my sober life. I liked the person I had become, and I never had a desire to drink. I also hadn’t changed my ways in AA. I was friendly with only a handful of people. I didn’t go to retreats, or listen to tapes, or join in AA social events. After I completed the steps, I drifted away from my sponsor, and didn’t look for another. Though I was respected in meetings as someone with solid sobriety and a good message, I was rarely asked to sponsor, perhaps because I wasn’t an insider. Also, I didn’t usually reach out to newcomers because I didn’t feel I could be honest about my atheism. It’s hard to guide someone through the Steps and avoid the God talk and I believed newcomers were better off if they could fit in. In 1994, when I was ten years sober, I had a new relationship and began skipping my Sunday morning meeting. In a few months, I drifted away.

In 2004, after a decade away from AA, I returned. I had experienced a number of losses, and I thought meetings might chase away my despair. It worked. I soon felt better – more hopeful, more energetic. I was, however, disappointed to see that AA was still conservative. At that time, many newcomers were calling themselves “cross-addicted”, and they were meeting resistance. Some of the members, mostly “old-timers”, claimed that AA is for alcoholics only. Though the label “cross-addicted” was never banned, those who used it knew they were being tolerated more than accepted. I was twenty years sober, and I still didn’t know another AA atheist.

In 2005, I moved to another small town in a nearby state. The town was politically progressive, so I assumed that would spill over into AA. Not so. If anything I found meetings to be even more structured with less opportunity for free discussion. Fortunately, I finally did meet a couple of fellow travelers, Thom and Dominick. We began to talk about the need for a meeting for agnostics and atheists. Thom researched agnostic AA meetings online and printed out some materials, including an alternative form of the Twelve Steps. We were good to go. We named our group “We Are Not Saints”. We spread the word, at first, by announcing it at other meetings. Though we heard some grumbling and rumors of opposition, we had no trouble getting the meeting listed. Our group has been meeting for several years with a steady attendance of 10-15, many of whom are newcomers.

After 30 years, I can unequivocally say that I owe my sober self to AA. I doubt I would have made it through my first sober decade without going to meetings. I am cheering the current movement of freethinkers for challenging conservative AA. In 2014, my buddies, Thom and Dominick, attended the first AA convention for agnostics, atheists and freethinkers in Santa Monica. They returned beyond enthusiastic about the potential for this new movement.

If it succeeds, and AA begins to welcome and accept agnostics, atheists and freethinkers, countless suffering alcoholics who see AA as a religious organization will begin to lead sober lives, finally comfortable in the rooms of AA.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post God Problems first appeared on AA Agnostica.

God Problems

Chapter 12:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Betsy M.

My father got sober in AA in 1952. He drove two hours round trip to the nearest city to attend the only weekly meeting in his region. I was five, but I have no memories of my father as a drinker. He didn’t try to frighten us kids away from alcohol, but he did tell us that AA was the place to go if we ever “got into trouble” with booze. As far as I knew, my father had never lied to me, so in 1984 I took his advice. I was 37, and I had been unsuccessfully trying to control my drinking. At my first meeting, I felt hopeful. I realized that I could get sober in AA. Though I saw no one at that meeting who seemed “like me”, I identified with at least one thing each person said. After the meeting, a scary looking guy came up to me and said: “Just don’t drink, even if your ass falls off”. That I understood his warning as sage advice certainly speaks to how ready I was for AA.

In the small town where I got sober, I ran into God problems almost immediately. My first roadblock was The Big Book. I couldn’t stand it. It struck me as a self-help book for Christian men from my father’s generation. I am a woman, a feminist and an atheist who came of age in the 1960s, not the 1940s. The Book was not written with me in mind, and no matter how hard I tried to twist the language to make it fit, it didn’t.

The second roadblock was The Lord’s Prayer. One of my regular meetings closed with that prayer. At first, I didn’t recite the prayer, not because the words offended me, but because I don’t believe them. A few well-meaning people urged me to “fake it ‘til you make it”. I didn’t want to bring negative attention to myself, so I decided to conform. I felt in my gut that if I was going to keep coming to AA, which I absolutely had to do, I needed to avoid alienating myself from the people whose help I needed.

After my first anniversary, I got a sponsor. Like all the AA women I knew, her higher power was God. In fact, she had just converted to Catholicism. She was, fortunately, willing to allow me to work the Steps without trying to force me to define a higher power for myself. She told me not to worry, that she understood that “some of us take longer than others”. By the time I got to my 5th Step, I was trying to be opened-minded. I thought maybe I should give the higher power thing a try. I had met a lot of people who seemed happily sober. And while I was grateful to be sober, I was certainly not happy during those first couple of years.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

I began my exploration with a book of daily readings, consisting of an AA-related reflection, followed by a prayer. Although I tried to approach this sincerely, saying the prayer made me feel like a phony, so I gave it up. I also met with a professor of theology, a friend of a friend. She gave me interesting things to read, from many monotheist traditions, and we met once a month to discuss them. I found many of the writers intelligent and persuasive. Still, I was not persuaded. By my third year, I decided I had given God an honest try, and I returned to my former belief (or nonbelief). I didn’t share my decision with anyone because I didn’t know anyone I thought would accept it. I remember I felt lonely about that. I had a family and a demanding job. Otherwise, I might have looked outside my town for some meetings with like-minded women.

By the time I’d been sober six years, I was going to only one meeting a week. I appreciated my sober life. I liked the person I had become, and I never had a desire to drink. I also hadn’t changed my ways in AA. I was friendly with only a handful of people. I didn’t go to retreats, or listen to tapes, or join in AA social events. After I completed the steps, I drifted away from my sponsor, and didn’t look for another. Though I was respected in meetings as someone with solid sobriety and a good message, I was rarely asked to sponsor, perhaps because I wasn’t an insider. Also, I didn’t usually reach out to newcomers because I didn’t feel I could be honest about my atheism. It’s hard to guide someone through the Steps and avoid the God talk and I believed newcomers were better off if they could fit in. In 1994, when I was ten years sober, I had a new relationship and began skipping my Sunday morning meeting. In a few months, I drifted away.

In 2004, after a decade away from AA, I returned. I had experienced a number of losses, and I thought meetings might chase away my despair. It worked. I soon felt better – more hopeful, more energetic. I was, however, disappointed to see that AA was still conservative. At that time, many newcomers were calling themselves “cross-addicted”, and they were meeting resistance. Some of the members, mostly “old-timers”, claimed that AA is for alcoholics only. Though the label “cross-addicted” was never banned, those who used it knew they were being tolerated more than accepted. I was twenty years sober, and I still didn’t know another AA atheist.

In 2005, I moved to another small town in a nearby state. The town was politically progressive, so I assumed that would spill over into AA. Not so. If anything I found meetings to be even more structured with less opportunity for free discussion. Fortunately, I finally did meet a couple of fellow travelers, Thom and Dominick. We began to talk about the need for a meeting for agnostics and atheists. Thom researched agnostic AA meetings online and printed out some materials, including an alternative form of the Twelve Steps. We were good to go. We named our group “We Are Not Saints”. We spread the word, at first, by announcing it at other meetings. Though we heard some grumbling and rumors of opposition, we had no trouble getting the meeting listed. Our group has been meeting for several years with a steady attendance of 10-15, many of whom are newcomers.

After 30 years, I can unequivocally say that I owe my sober self to AA. I doubt I would have made it through my first sober decade without going to meetings. I am cheering the current movement of freethinkers for challenging conservative AA. In 2014, my buddies, Thom and Dominick, attended the first AA convention for agnostics, atheists and freethinkers in Santa Monica. They returned beyond enthusiastic about the potential for this new movement.

If it succeeds, and AA begins to welcome and accept agnostics, atheists and freethinkers, countless suffering alcoholics who see AA as a religious organization will begin to lead sober lives, finally comfortable in the rooms of AA.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post God Problems first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA Is Becoming More Accessible. Is It More Inclusive?

by David W

This past year AA Area 83, where my home group resides elected to add an accessibility chair to its service structure. In several areas, accessibility has traditionally been lumped in with treatment. Locally it has been decided that a standalone structure is needed to address the diverse barriers that are preventing people from accessing the fellowship and support that AA can offer.

I consulted a GSO Guidelines document to get an idea of how the current scope of accessibility is defined. Here is the document: Accessibility for All Alcoholics.

Briefly, the guideline’s primary focus is to aid groups in accommodating people with physical and mental limitations such as being wheelchair bound, sight and hearing impaired, the home or hospital bound, those with chronic illness, strokes, and brain injury. It is critical for AA to address these barriers to make the fellowship available to these individuals.

What is not discussed in the document are the more subtle, harder to quantify barriers that are based on personal biases and narrow beliefs about what AA should be. A common dilemma voiced in secular meetings is how the individual struggles with the insistence that a belief in god is critical to recovery. The olive branch of “a god of your understanding” simply does not work for many. I submit that there are those who have found AA non-accessible because their core beliefs conflict with the god-based doctrine that is actively promoted in many meetings and the legacy literature.

A belief in god is not the only philosophical barrier that exists in AA, but it seems to be the one that people stumble over the most.  A common manifestation of the issue is the insistence of repeating the Lord’s Prayer at the end of many meetings and other gatherings. At the Area 83 Assembly in Kingston Ontario in the spring of 2019, a motion was put forward to close assembly speaker meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. Fortunately, the motion was defeated with an over three quarters majority voting against.

Despite the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal forcing Toronto Intergroup to reinstate secular groups in its meeting listings, it continues to promote religiosity and a belief in god actively in its monthly newsletter, Better Times. The tone of language used in the publication leaves little room for an alternative view. A few random quotes from various issues over the past year:

“With perseverance and acceptance in all aspects of our lives, good things will happen in God’s time.” (December 2020)

“God had miraculously removed from me the craving for alcohol… As I began to accept God’s companionship, His grace and His will for me…” (September 2020)

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.” (July 2020)

There may be no more glaring insistence that god is the central authority in AA than tradition two that states that “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”  AA’s true authority and guidance has been the collective conscience and participation of the membership. Removing god’s alleged part in AA governance would more accurately reflect this reality.

God shows up as a change agent in no less than five of the original twelve steps. Additionally, in step two, “a Power greater than ourselves” implies god with a capitalized “P “. The granting of a god of our understanding seems to have been intended as a temporary placeholder, meant to appease those misguided souls that are struggling with their faith until they surrender and come to accept the existence of the one true god.

Step eleven in The Twelve and Twelve states: “To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the AA group as their higher power…”.  In chapter five of the Big Book, How It Works, the alcoholic is informed “That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.” Hopelessness is quickly replaced by hope by proclaiming “That God could and would (relieve our alcoholism) if He were sought”.

A lack of faith-based neutrality is an inherent problem in AAs service structures. God centric literature is actively promoted and distributed. Two local districts in Toronto recently donated copies of the Big Book to CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Among the responsibilities for Corrections locally is to ensure copies of the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve are available in the prison system.

Despite the growth of secular AA, the fellowship is very much still a prisoner of its historic roots in Judeo-Christian culture. The Big Book and Twelve and Twelve continue to occupy a prominent place as literature recommended to the recovering alcoholic. A few months before in person meetings in the greater Toronto area were shut down due to Covid19, I did a quick survey of the meeting listing on the Toronto Intergroup web site. Of the approximate five hundred meetings listed, about twenty percent identified as Big Book meetings. An additional thirteen percent identified as step meetings. Assuming the majority of these were using the Twelve and Twelve (admittedly I was unable to verify this), about a third of all local meetings were using readings from these two books.

In writing this article I have focused primarily on dogmatic religious and god centric barriers. Turning attention to other segments of the AA population indicates inroads are being made to make the fellowship more welcoming and inclusive to different groups. There are meetings for women, for the LGBTQ community, for young people and for those of different ethnic groups and languages. In 2018 AA published the pamphlet “Do You Think You Are Different?”.  It contains thirteen stories from an array of people who make up diverse segments of the general population.

The most recent comprehensive membership survey I could find on the Alcoholics Anonymous website is from 2014. It states the average age of an AA member to be 50 years old. The same year the average age of a US and Canadian citizen were 37.7 and 40.5 years, respectively. Of all occupations of members, retired people make up the largest category. AA is overwhelmingly white at 89% of the total membership population.

A look at Area 83 statistics for 2020 shows most members at, close to, or over retirement age. Men make up 56% of the local area membership, women 33%, and 11% are identified as others. White members make up 86% of the overall local fellowship.

A curious omission from the surveys is the lack of data on member’s religious affiliations and faith-based beliefs or disbeliefs. This is hardly surprising given AA’s insistence that an acceptance of the existence of a god comparable to that found in Christian culture is essential and promoted in the Big Book and Twelve and Twelve. It is assumed that when one acquires an acceptance of such a being, contrary beliefs will simply disappear. Better to let the sleeping dog lie than to collect data that might draw attention to the to the narrowness of the foundational books.

AA is making efforts to accommodate people of diverse backgrounds and needs. The statistics indicate only partial success. Despite the reality that we are confronted with an affliction that knows no gender, racial, socioeconomic, or sexual preference barriers, we are still very much an old white male hetero Christian based fellowship. We are learning to welcome and respect diversity and change but the battle to create a fellowship that is inclusive for all is made more arduous by our insistence in clinging to archaic outdated dogmatic literature.

David is a sixty two year-old agnostic alcoholic whose drinking career began late in life after growing up with an alcoholic father. After twelve years of daily drinking, he came to believe that a substance greater than himself trapped him in the same addictive cycle that had trapped various members of his family on both sides. Desperate for outside help, he found secular AA on-line in 2018 and was able to avoid the conflict with religion and a mandatory belief in god that traditional AA insists on imposing on members. His home group is Beyond Belief Toronto and he celebrated two years sobriety in December 2020.

This is David’s fourth article on AA Agnostica: Here are the previous three:

 

The post AA Is Becoming More Accessible. Is It More Inclusive? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

AA Is Becoming More Accessible. Is It More Inclusive?

by David W

This past year AA Area 83, where my home group resides elected to add an accessibility chair to its service structure. In several areas, accessibility has traditionally been lumped in with treatment. Locally it has been decided that a standalone structure is needed to address the diverse barriers that are preventing people from accessing the fellowship and support that AA can offer.

I consulted a GSO Guidelines document to get an idea of how the current scope of accessibility is defined. Here is the document: Accessibility for All Alcoholics.

Briefly, the guideline’s primary focus is to aid groups in accommodating people with physical and mental limitations such as being wheelchair bound, sight and hearing impaired, the home or hospital bound, those with chronic illness, strokes, and brain injury. It is critical for AA to address these barriers to make the fellowship available to these individuals.

What is not discussed in the document are the more subtle, harder to quantify barriers that are based on personal biases and narrow beliefs about what AA should be. A common dilemma voiced in secular meetings is how the individual struggles with the insistence that a belief in god is critical to recovery. The olive branch of “a god of your understanding” simply does not work for many. I submit that there are those who have found AA non-accessible because their core beliefs conflict with the god-based doctrine that is actively promoted in many meetings and the legacy literature.

A belief in god is not the only philosophical barrier that exists in AA, but it seems to be the one that people stumble over the most.  A common manifestation of the issue is the insistence of repeating the Lord’s Prayer at the end of many meetings and other gatherings. At the Area 83 Assembly in Kingston Ontario in the spring of 2019, a motion was put forward to close assembly speaker meetings with the Lord’s Prayer. Fortunately, the motion was defeated with an over three quarters majority voting against.

Despite the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal forcing Toronto Intergroup to reinstate secular groups in its meeting listings, it continues to promote religiosity and a belief in god actively in its monthly newsletter, Better Times. The tone of language used in the publication leaves little room for an alternative view. A few random quotes from various issues over the past year:

“With perseverance and acceptance in all aspects of our lives, good things will happen in God’s time.” (December 2020)

“God had miraculously removed from me the craving for alcohol… As I began to accept God’s companionship, His grace and His will for me…” (September 2020)

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad.” (July 2020)

There may be no more glaring insistence that god is the central authority in AA than tradition two that states that “For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.”  AA’s true authority and guidance has been the collective conscience and participation of the membership. Removing god’s alleged part in AA governance would more accurately reflect this reality.

God shows up as a change agent in no less than five of the original twelve steps. Additionally, in step two, “a Power greater than ourselves” implies god with a capitalized “P “. The granting of a god of our understanding seems to have been intended as a temporary placeholder, meant to appease those misguided souls that are struggling with their faith until they surrender and come to accept the existence of the one true god.

Step eleven in The Twelve and Twelve states: “To certain newcomers and to those one-time agnostics who still cling to the AA group as their higher power…”.  In chapter five of the Big Book, How It Works, the alcoholic is informed “That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.” Hopelessness is quickly replaced by hope by proclaiming “That God could and would (relieve our alcoholism) if He were sought”.

A lack of faith-based neutrality is an inherent problem in AAs service structures. God centric literature is actively promoted and distributed. Two local districts in Toronto recently donated copies of the Big Book to CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Among the responsibilities for Corrections locally is to ensure copies of the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve are available in the prison system.

Despite the growth of secular AA, the fellowship is very much still a prisoner of its historic roots in Judeo-Christian culture. The Big Book and Twelve and Twelve continue to occupy a prominent place as literature recommended to the recovering alcoholic. A few months before in person meetings in the greater Toronto area were shut down due to Covid19, I did a quick survey of the meeting listing on the Toronto Intergroup web site. Of the approximate five hundred meetings listed, about twenty percent identified as Big Book meetings. An additional thirteen percent identified as step meetings. Assuming the majority of these were using the Twelve and Twelve (admittedly I was unable to verify this), about a third of all local meetings were using readings from these two books.

In writing this article I have focused primarily on dogmatic religious and god centric barriers. Turning attention to other segments of the AA population indicates inroads are being made to make the fellowship more welcoming and inclusive to different groups. There are meetings for women, for the LGBTQ community, for young people and for those of different ethnic groups and languages. In 2018 AA published the pamphlet “Do You Think You Are Different?”.  It contains thirteen stories from an array of people who make up diverse segments of the general population.

The most recent comprehensive membership survey I could find on the Alcoholics Anonymous website is from 2014. It states the average age of an AA member to be 50 years old. The same year the average age of a US and Canadian citizen were 37.7 and 40.5 years, respectively. Of all occupations of members, retired people make up the largest category. AA is overwhelmingly white at 89% of the total membership population.

A look at Area 83 statistics for 2020 shows most members at, close to, or over retirement age. Men make up 56% of the local area membership, women 33%, and 11% are identified as others. White members make up 86% of the overall local fellowship.

A curious omission from the surveys is the lack of data on member’s religious affiliations and faith-based beliefs or disbeliefs. This is hardly surprising given AA’s insistence that an acceptance of the existence of a god comparable to that found in Christian culture is essential and promoted in the Big Book and Twelve and Twelve. It is assumed that when one acquires an acceptance of such a being, contrary beliefs will simply disappear. Better to let the sleeping dog lie than to collect data that might draw attention to the to the narrowness of the foundational books.

AA is making efforts to accommodate people of diverse backgrounds and needs. The statistics indicate only partial success. Despite the reality that we are confronted with an affliction that knows no gender, racial, socioeconomic, or sexual preference barriers, we are still very much an old white male hetero Christian based fellowship. We are learning to welcome and respect diversity and change but the battle to create a fellowship that is inclusive for all is made more arduous by our insistence in clinging to archaic outdated dogmatic literature.

David is a sixty two year-old agnostic alcoholic whose drinking career began late in life after growing up with an alcoholic father. After twelve years of daily drinking, he came to believe that a substance greater than himself trapped him in the same addictive cycle that had trapped various members of his family on both sides. Desperate for outside help, he found secular AA on-line in 2018 and was able to avoid the conflict with religion and a mandatory belief in god that traditional AA insists on imposing on members. His home group is Beyond Belief Toronto and he celebrated two years sobriety in December 2020.

This is David’s fourth article on AA Agnostica: Here are the previous three:

 

The post AA Is Becoming More Accessible. Is It More Inclusive? first appeared on AA Agnostica.

The Magical Mystery Cure (is coming to take you away)

by bob k

The more liberal talk that’s heard around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous can convey the impression that conventional AA is user-friendly to those of us in the atheist-agnostic camp. Phrases like “Higher Power” and even “higher power” suggest the sanctioning of a wide range of beliefs. The invitation to choose one’s “own conception of God,” while not as welcoming as the traditionalists imagine, is better than nothing. There’s a hint of what’s to come with the faux flexibility of “God as we understood Him.” (oopsy)

Naturally enough, the Bigga Booka is what it is. The “Power greater” options disappear on page 46 where we learn “that Power… is God.” One’s “own conception of God” also has a limited shelf life. “Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach… At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth….” (BB, pp. 46-47) Thus, the weasel words vanish in a puff of incense.

Nonetheless, the nonbeliever is invited to “keep coming back.” He is invited to embrace the more pragmatic philosophy of his new friends. He is further invited to abandon his belligerent denial – to let the scales of unreasoning prejudice fall from his eyes. “I used to be a militant atheist, just like you.”

When it comes to the religious roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, those also are what they are and there’s much more to all of that than the Oxford Group. Today we’ll take a look at some of AA’s other religious predecessors. Admittedly, Buchman’s evangelicals were directly responsible for the arrival of Ebby Thacher at the home of his old school chum, Bill Wilson. In late November of 1934 that Ebby brought the “good news” that a decision for Christ had released him from his obsession for alcohol.

“I’ve got religion,” he proclaimed!

When his drunken friend asked for further clarification, Thacher replied: “Yes, Bill, I can provide that. The magical mystery cure is coming to take you away; coming to take you away.”

* * *

Pietism

Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) was a Lutheran pastor who found himself increasingly disenchanted with his church’s focus on ritual and dogma. He thought that congregants should have a greater role than that of mere audience members at the Sunday morning salvation show. In 1675, Spener published Pious Desires, a call for a “religion of the heart” rather than of the head. Christians were urged to seek a personal experience with God and to maintain a continuous openness to spiritual illumination.

Spener stressed the need for ethical purity, inward devotion, charity, asceticism, and mysticism. A deeper emotional experience was to be had from one’s religion. Centuries later, a Cocaine Anonymous speaker was noted for saying: “God is the best drug there is, and there’s an unlimited supply.”

Jesper Swedberg (1653-1735)

Swedberg was a prominent member of the Swedish clergy, court chaplain, professor of theology in the University of Uppsala, and later bishop of Skara. When his family was ennobled in 1717, it took the name “Swedenborg.”

Britannica

Swedberg traveled through Europe in the 1680s and was attracted by Spener’s ideas. He came to believe that personal transformation could be brought about by spiritual rebirth and renewal. The case is easily made that ten generations later, personal transformation through spiritual rebirth would form the very essence of the Twelve-Step process.

“Spirits and angels were entrusted, and Swedberg claimed the Lord had saved his life more than once, which He did by giving Swedberg direct messages, warning him of dangers.” (fampeople.com) The Oxford Group called direct messages from God “guidance.” Such direction was available to all who sought.

… coming to take you away.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)

Jesper Swedberg’s son was something of a da Vinci. After graduating from the University of Uppsala, he visited Germany, Holland, France, and England where he pursued his interests in physics, mechanics, mathematics, and philosophy. He also wrote poetry. As his family had status but limited wealth, Swedenborg forged a career as a scientist and inventor with Sweden’s Department of Mines.

In his mid-50s, the pastor’s son began experiencing strange dreams “of a grossly sexual nature.” (britannica.com) Swedenborg was pressed to confront the ego-driven elements of his burning desire to be recognized as a great man of science. From 1743-1744, two forces – the love of self and the love of God – battled for supremacy. Throughout this existential crisis, the scientist repeatedly heard voices and experienced visions. A waking vision of the Lord told him to quit his job.

He retired from the world of science to take up a new mission as a man of God – a very special man of God, by his own accounts. Ten years into his religious vocation, he declared that the “Second Coming of Christ” had indeed taken place. Christ had arrived, not in person, but through His chosen agent, Emanuel Swedenborg. He declared that he had been given the power to freely visit heaven and hell and to converse with both angels and demons.

In spite of the strange nature of many of his claims, Swedenborg had followers. These included William Butler Yeats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James Sr., and the family of the AA founder’s wife, Lois Burnham Wilson.

Henry James Sr.

The curse of mankind, that which keeps our manhood so little and so depressed is its sense of selfhood, and the absurd abominable opinionatedness it engenders.

The Three Jameses: A Family of Minds, Hatley C. Grafton, p. 84

The father of William James inherited enough money to live as a man of leisure. He studied for the ministry but rejected much of what he was being taught. While in his early thirties, he fell into a two-year period of spiritual crisis. Biographers have suggested that James exhibited the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder. Carl Jung suffered similar “psychotic episodes,” later referring to his experience as “a confrontation with the unconscious.”

James felt a presence that was less benevolent than Bill Wilson’s Towns Hospital visitor – “a perfectly insane and abject terror, without ostensible cause and only to be accounted for, by some damned shape squatting invisible to me within the precincts of the room and raging out from his fetid personality influences fatal to life.”  (Henry James, F.W. Dupee, p. 50)

Through rigorous self-examination and the study of Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings, Henry James Sr. eventually escaped the most severe aspects of his depression and stopped self-medicating with heavy drinking. He influenced his son and William is credited with influencing Alcoholics Anonymous.

Swedenborgianism made its way to AA via other pathways.

Nathan Burnham (1813-1889)

Dad’s father, Nathan Clark Burnham, practiced law and medicine, and was a minister of the Swedenborgian Church in Lancaster (Pennsylvania)…

Lois Remembers, Lois Wilson, p. 2

N.C. Burnham was more than a mere minister. He was a theologian and authored Discrete Degrees, a New Church text. Lois and her family members were rigorous adherents to the faith. There can be little doubt that Bill Wilson learned at least the basics of the quirky religion of his wife and in-laws.

His friendship with Rogers Burnham and later, his courtship of Lois, brought the emotionally needy young man into the company of the fascinating family of a medical doctor. Surely Bill relished the sophisticated dinner conversations so unlikely at the home of his elderly wards, the Griffiths. “Lois’s father, Dr. Clark Burnham was to have a tremendous if somewhat indirect influence on Bill’s life.” (Bill W., Robert Thomsen, p. 16)

New Thought*

The most obvious connecting link between Alcoholics Anonymous and the New Thought movement comes through William James who “had found answers to his depression and doubts about his self-worth from… New Thought teachings, which he termed ‘mind-cure’ … While New Thought organizations never became very large, their ideas have wide acceptance in general society and influenced early AA… The principal benefit was much like the program of the Oxford Group and the claims of William James in his seminal book. It transformed religious beliefs into a plan of action that individuals could follow for their own benefit in solving problems in the here and now.” 

New Wine, Mel B., p.105

* For a more detailed look at New Thought see Beyond Belief – New Thought and AA

New Thought began with Phineas Quimby (1806-1866), a Portland Maine clockmaker “who practiced mesmerism and developed his concepts of mental and spiritual healing and health based on the view that illness is a matter of the mind.” (britannica.com)

New Thought spawned Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) had been a patient of Quimby’s.”Did Christian Science teachings have anything to do with the forming of AA and the evolution of the Twelve Steps? Bill Wilson, months before he met up with the Oxford Group, had read and reread Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in the hope of overcoming his drinking….” (New Wine, Mel B., p. 104)

Faced with both the fear created by the fire and brimstone of the Second Great Awakening and the sterility of scientific empiricism “New Thought counters with an unflinchingly positive view of life and its outcome. By… resigning the care of your destiny to higher powers… the believer gives the little compulsive self a rest.” (Language of the Heart, Trysh Travis, p. 77)

The magical mystery cure is coming to take you away.

“James characterized New Thought’s highest aim as an undoing of the modern norms of vigilance and aggression, the cultivation of ‘passivity, not activity; relaxation, not intentness.’” (Travis, p. 78) The Emmanuel Movement joined Christian Science and New Thought as “‘harmonial religions’… in which spiritual composure, physical health, and even economic well-being are understood to flow from a personal rapport with the cosmos.” (The Road To Fellowship, Richard Dubiel, p. 2) The cosmos, or God, or Him perhaps.

AA’s Tenth Step promises are dripping with passivity:

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol …. We will seldom be interested in liquor…. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.“

By the Giant Remover, you know, “Him”

Early AA members were all over New Thought literature such as James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh, and The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox. New York AA’s frequently showed up in groups to listen to Fox carry the message. New Thought also produced positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale, Marianne Williamson, and Rhonda Byrne.

* * *

Positive affirmations can be seen in AA’s Bigga Booka: “Rarely have we seen a person fail…”; “We have recovered”; “… the problem has been removed”; etc. Of course, at the core of all of this personal transformation is the Grace of God. “God could and would if He were sought.”

Sadly, amidst all of the curing of Swedenborgianism, New Thought, Christian Science, and Alcoholics Anonymous, the number of healed amputees remains at zero. This limit of the magical mystery cure is particularly disappointing as the capital “C” Curer could repair a legless man with a snap of His Divine fingers.

After all: … there is one who has all Power – that One is God. May you find Him now. 

Choose your own conception of Him, if you wish, but don’t stray too far from AA’s religious roots.

Key Players in AA HistoryBob k, the author of 2015’s Key Players in AA History, is working to get two new books into print in 2021. The Road To AA: Pilgrims to Prohibition looks at America’s various efforts to deal with the problems that come with alcohol consumption. In The Secret Diaries of Bill W., a work of biographical fiction, the AA founder gives us an account of his life in his own words.

To date, bob k has written a total of 52 articles on AA Agnostica (those by Bobby Beach have a check mark – ✔). Here are his earlier articles:

And here are the 32 articles by bob posted on the AA Beyond Belief website (again with a check mark – ✔ – for those by Bobby Beach):

The post The Magical Mystery Cure (is coming to take you away) first appeared on AA Agnostica.

The Magical Mystery Cure (is coming to take you away)

by bob k

The more liberal talk that’s heard around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous can convey the impression that conventional AA is user-friendly to those of us in the atheist-agnostic camp. Phrases like “Higher Power” and even “higher power” suggest the sanctioning of a wide range of beliefs. The invitation to choose one’s “own conception of God,” while not as welcoming as the traditionalists imagine, is better than nothing. There’s a hint of what’s to come with the faux flexibility of “God as we understood Him.” (oopsy)

Naturally enough, the Bigga Booka is what it is. The “Power greater” options disappear on page 46 where we learn “that Power… is God.” One’s “own conception of God” also has a limited shelf life. “Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach… At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth….” (BB, pp. 46-47) Thus, the weasel words vanish in a puff of incense.

Nonetheless, the nonbeliever is invited to “keep coming back.” He is invited to embrace the more pragmatic philosophy of his new friends. He is further invited to abandon his belligerent denial – to let the scales of unreasoning prejudice fall from his eyes. “I used to be a militant atheist, just like you.”

When it comes to the religious roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, those also are what they are and there’s much more to all of that than the Oxford Group. Today we’ll take a look at some of AA’s other religious predecessors. Admittedly, Buchman’s evangelicals were directly responsible for the arrival of Ebby Thacher at the home of his old school chum, Bill Wilson. In late November of 1934 that Ebby brought the “good news” that a decision for Christ had released him from his obsession for alcohol.

“I’ve got religion,” he proclaimed!

When his drunken friend asked for further clarification, Thacher replied: “Yes, Bill, I can provide that. The magical mystery cure is coming to take you away; coming to take you away.”

* * *

Pietism

Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) was a Lutheran pastor who found himself increasingly disenchanted with his church’s focus on ritual and dogma. He thought that congregants should have a greater role than that of mere audience members at the Sunday morning salvation show. In 1675, Spener published Pious Desires, a call for a “religion of the heart” rather than of the head. Christians were urged to seek a personal experience with God and to maintain a continuous openness to spiritual illumination.

Spener stressed the need for ethical purity, inward devotion, charity, asceticism, and mysticism. A deeper emotional experience was to be had from one’s religion. Centuries later, a Cocaine Anonymous speaker was noted for saying: “God is the best drug there is, and there’s an unlimited supply.”

Jesper Swedberg (1653-1735)

Swedberg was a prominent member of the Swedish clergy, court chaplain, professor of theology in the University of Uppsala, and later bishop of Skara. When his family was ennobled in 1717, it took the name “Swedenborg.”

Britannica

Swedberg traveled through Europe in the 1680s and was attracted by Spener’s ideas. He came to believe that personal transformation could be brought about by spiritual rebirth and renewal. The case is easily made that ten generations later, personal transformation through spiritual rebirth would form the very essence of the Twelve-Step process.

“Spirits and angels were entrusted, and Swedberg claimed the Lord had saved his life more than once, which He did by giving Swedberg direct messages, warning him of dangers.” (fampeople.com) The Oxford Group called direct messages from God “guidance.” Such direction was available to all who sought.

… coming to take you away.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772)

Jesper Swedberg’s son was something of a da Vinci. After graduating from the University of Uppsala, he visited Germany, Holland, France, and England where he pursued his interests in physics, mechanics, mathematics, and philosophy. He also wrote poetry. As his family had status but limited wealth, Swedenborg forged a career as a scientist and inventor with Sweden’s Department of Mines.

In his mid-50s, the pastor’s son began experiencing strange dreams “of a grossly sexual nature.” (britannica.com) Swedenborg was pressed to confront the ego-driven elements of his burning desire to be recognized as a great man of science. From 1743-1744, two forces – the love of self and the love of God – battled for supremacy. Throughout this existential crisis, the scientist repeatedly heard voices and experienced visions. A waking vision of the Lord told him to quit his job.

He retired from the world of science to take up a new mission as a man of God – a very special man of God, by his own accounts. Ten years into his religious vocation, he declared that the “Second Coming of Christ” had indeed taken place. Christ had arrived, not in person, but through His chosen agent, Emanuel Swedenborg. He declared that he had been given the power to freely visit heaven and hell and to converse with both angels and demons.

In spite of the strange nature of many of his claims, Swedenborg had followers. These included William Butler Yeats, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry James Sr., and the family of the AA founder’s wife, Lois Burnham Wilson.

Henry James Sr.

The curse of mankind, that which keeps our manhood so little and so depressed is its sense of selfhood, and the absurd abominable opinionatedness it engenders.

The Three Jameses: A Family of Minds, Hatley C. Grafton, p. 84

The father of William James inherited enough money to live as a man of leisure. He studied for the ministry but rejected much of what he was being taught. While in his early thirties, he fell into a two-year period of spiritual crisis. Biographers have suggested that James exhibited the classic symptoms of bipolar disorder. Carl Jung suffered similar “psychotic episodes,” later referring to his experience as “a confrontation with the unconscious.”

James felt a presence that was less benevolent than Bill Wilson’s Towns Hospital visitor – “a perfectly insane and abject terror, without ostensible cause and only to be accounted for, by some damned shape squatting invisible to me within the precincts of the room and raging out from his fetid personality influences fatal to life.”  (Henry James, F.W. Dupee, p. 50)

Through rigorous self-examination and the study of Emanuel Swedenborg’s writings, Henry James Sr. eventually escaped the most severe aspects of his depression and stopped self-medicating with heavy drinking. He influenced his son and William is credited with influencing Alcoholics Anonymous.

Swedenborgianism made its way to AA via other pathways.

Nathan Burnham (1813-1889)

Dad’s father, Nathan Clark Burnham, practiced law and medicine, and was a minister of the Swedenborgian Church in Lancaster (Pennsylvania)…

Lois Remembers, Lois Wilson, p. 2

N.C. Burnham was more than a mere minister. He was a theologian and authored Discrete Degrees, a New Church text. Lois and her family members were rigorous adherents to the faith. There can be little doubt that Bill Wilson learned at least the basics of the quirky religion of his wife and in-laws.

His friendship with Rogers Burnham and later, his courtship of Lois, brought the emotionally needy young man into the company of the fascinating family of a medical doctor. Surely Bill relished the sophisticated dinner conversations so unlikely at the home of his elderly wards, the Griffiths. “Lois’s father, Dr. Clark Burnham was to have a tremendous if somewhat indirect influence on Bill’s life.” (Bill W., Robert Thomsen, p. 16)

New Thought*

The most obvious connecting link between Alcoholics Anonymous and the New Thought movement comes through William James who “had found answers to his depression and doubts about his self-worth from… New Thought teachings, which he termed ‘mind-cure’ … While New Thought organizations never became very large, their ideas have wide acceptance in general society and influenced early AA… The principal benefit was much like the program of the Oxford Group and the claims of William James in his seminal book. It transformed religious beliefs into a plan of action that individuals could follow for their own benefit in solving problems in the here and now.” 

New Wine, Mel B., p.105

* For a more detailed look at New Thought see Beyond Belief – New Thought and AA

New Thought began with Phineas Quimby (1806-1866), a Portland Maine clockmaker “who practiced mesmerism and developed his concepts of mental and spiritual healing and health based on the view that illness is a matter of the mind.” (britannica.com)

New Thought spawned Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) had been a patient of Quimby’s.”Did Christian Science teachings have anything to do with the forming of AA and the evolution of the Twelve Steps? Bill Wilson, months before he met up with the Oxford Group, had read and reread Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures in the hope of overcoming his drinking….” (New Wine, Mel B., p. 104)

Faced with both the fear created by the fire and brimstone of the Second Great Awakening and the sterility of scientific empiricism “New Thought counters with an unflinchingly positive view of life and its outcome. By… resigning the care of your destiny to higher powers… the believer gives the little compulsive self a rest.” (Language of the Heart, Trysh Travis, p. 77)

The magical mystery cure is coming to take you away.

“James characterized New Thought’s highest aim as an undoing of the modern norms of vigilance and aggression, the cultivation of ‘passivity, not activity; relaxation, not intentness.’” (Travis, p. 78) The Emmanuel Movement joined Christian Science and New Thought as “‘harmonial religions’… in which spiritual composure, physical health, and even economic well-being are understood to flow from a personal rapport with the cosmos.” (The Road To Fellowship, Richard Dubiel, p. 2) The cosmos, or God, or Him perhaps.

AA’s Tenth Step promises are dripping with passivity:

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone – even alcohol …. We will seldom be interested in liquor…. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality – safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed.“

By the Giant Remover, you know, “Him”

Early AA members were all over New Thought literature such as James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh, and The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox. New York AA’s frequently showed up in groups to listen to Fox carry the message. New Thought also produced positive thinkers like Norman Vincent Peale, Marianne Williamson, and Rhonda Byrne.

* * *

Positive affirmations can be seen in AA’s Bigga Booka: “Rarely have we seen a person fail…”; “We have recovered”; “… the problem has been removed”; etc. Of course, at the core of all of this personal transformation is the Grace of God. “God could and would if He were sought.”

Sadly, amidst all of the curing of Swedenborgianism, New Thought, Christian Science, and Alcoholics Anonymous, the number of healed amputees remains at zero. This limit of the magical mystery cure is particularly disappointing as the capital “C” Curer could repair a legless man with a snap of His Divine fingers.

After all: … there is one who has all Power – that One is God. May you find Him now. 

Choose your own conception of Him, if you wish, but don’t stray too far from AA’s religious roots.

Key Players in AA HistoryBob k, the author of 2015’s Key Players in AA History, is working to get two new books into print in 2021. The Road To AA: Pilgrims to Prohibition looks at America’s various efforts to deal with the problems that come with alcohol consumption. In The Secret Diaries of Bill W., a work of biographical fiction, the AA founder gives us an account of his life in his own words.

To date, bob k has written a total of 52 articles on AA Agnostica (those by Bobby Beach have a check mark – ✔). Here are his earlier articles:

And here are the 32 articles by bob posted on the AA Beyond Belief website (again with a check mark – ✔ – for those by Bobby Beach):

The post The Magical Mystery Cure (is coming to take you away) first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Spirituality as I Understand It

Chapter 11:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Gabe S.

I showed signs of what I think of as “spiritual malady” from as far back as I can remember.

As a child, I was absorbed in fantasy. I was the God of my own fantasies, creating worlds at will. In those worlds I was whatever I fancied: a great warrior, or footballer, or rock guitarist. Often I was a superhero. I fantasized because I was not happy to be who I really was in the world as it really was.

The ambient world was actually very good to me. My family was well off and we lived in a leafy, desirable part of London. My parents were loving and kind and very liberal. But they did not let just anything go and taught me right from wrong. I have two much older brothers. One was nice enough, though a bit distant. The other was loving. They were (and still are) extremely successful at pretty much whatever they do: top of the class, head of school, best at sports and so on. The loving brother often played games with me. He always won. My mother from time to time voiced the view that, in this way or that, I would never be as good as them. I felt very inadequate. For some reason, when I was six, I was sent to a psychoanalyst who told me that I wanted to kill my brothers and my parents. I think that as a result of this, I felt that I was horrible inside. I was the worst of possible beings. I carried a terrible secret.

Growing up (or rather failing to do so) in the 1960s, the hippy-drug culture was all around. At about seven, the idea of taking drugs took root. Drugs represented an escape from reality, and an alternative lifestyle that appealed greatly. I went into denial even then. There was plenty of publicity that I saw and heard, saying: “Drugs are dangerous. They can ruin your life or kill you. You could become an “addict”. “Don’t do them!” This had no effect on my thinking. I had no fear. I began inhaling solvents at about ten. Then, aged fourteen, I started smoking marijuana. I quickly became a daily user and a true addict, with craving and obsession. I took whatever drugs I could find and afford.

I left home at sixteen, went to live in a squat and pursue the hippy lifestyle. I remember one time I took some LSD and went to a park. I tried hard to be at one with the beautiful flowers.

I got bored with drugs and with the hippy life and lucked my way into a good university. I received scholarships for a Master’s and then a PhD. I excelled. My confidence grew along with my self-esteem. But however much I received, it was not enough. Inside I was always inadequate.

I coped with some of my inner violence by training hard at Kung Fu. I enjoyed the aesthetic qualities, the endorphin high, the fighting and smashing things. I became skilled, tough and physically confident. Inside I remained inadequate.

I had always liked drinking and, as soon as I stopped the drugs, I began to drink more. I drank nearly every day for about thirty years. A lot. I liked drinking. I am sociable and always found heavy drinkers or alcoholics to drink with. I also had a great fondness for fine wines, gins and whisky.

When I was thirty three, I met a great woman. She was intellectual, cultured, charismatic and a good pool player. She was also very beautiful. We fell in love, more or less at first sight. After two years, we married. The passion wore off and after seven years we divorced. My part in the failure of the marriage was not, I think, the drinking in itself. It was the fact that alcohol was much more important to me than she was. Alcohol was my true lover. I did not have much emotional space for any mere human.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

It became clear to those close to me that I was an alcoholic. They told me this and provided excellent evidence. It meant nothing to me. Eventually, my doctor sent me to a counsellor who tried to teach me controlled drinking. After six months of therapy, I learned to control my drinking. Every waking hour that I spent not drinking, I spent planning those fifty units a week. The control didn’t last long!

I began to drink in the mornings and throughout the day. I did not seek out sordid places. Instead I turned my nice apartment into one, as a more-or-less open house for the local street drunks and druggies. I enjoyed the company and liked the people. But it was chaos. The police were constantly called. I ceased to be popular with my neighbours.

Of my fellow bohemians from that period, three are now dead (two ODs and one liver failure), and one, having landed on his head one time while drunk, has lost the ability to speak and lives in a care home.

While I was still clinging to a job, my psychiatrist sent me to rehab. There I was introduced to AA. Brought up as a devout atheist, and knowing science and philosophy, I knew I was never going to believe in any God. It was not a question of willingness to believe. My mind works in terms of evidence and argument. It doesn’t do faith. The “God” talk in AA put me off. But I could see a lot of drunks getting sober. I found meetings difficult, boring, formulaic, and full of religion. I tried to listen to the similarities, not the differences, but I failed. I was too self-absorbed to listen to anything much, or to feel the emotional support in the rooms. And I did not relish the prospect of sobriety. I thought life would be dull and joyless at best.

After I left rehab I relapsed immediately. I went back in, came out, and relapsed immediately again. I lost my job. I ended up living a nightmare, terrified for my physical and mental health and my future, hardly able to feed myself, unable to do anything but drink. If I drank enough, I could experience brief periods of escape: a sort of serenity through anaesthesia. But also, when drunk enough, I would do dangerous things. Once I collapsed and my head collided with the corner of a large TV. I knew nothing of this until I woke up with a bloodied dent in my head and a TV on the floor. Another time, in a fury, I deliberately put my fist through a stained-glass window. I left a stream of blood on the floor as I staggered to my sofa and passed out.

I knew drink was destroying me. I was its slave. Without realising it, I took Steps One, Two and Three. That meant going back to rehab and for once doing everything that I was told (other than pray) without question or argument. My therapist gave me an atheist version of the Steps. I found an atheist sponsor. For Step Three, I elected a sort of advisory board: my sponsor, some people in AA, some outside. I turned all important decision-making over to them: I sought their advice and took it. This was a great experience for me: finally to stop running on self-will, to let go and go with the flow. I also learned to open my mind and my ears and listen at meetings. I have learned far more about myself from listening to other alcoholics than I did from many years of therapy. I like meetings now and I hear the similarities, not the differences. I know I am among people like me.

I did the Steps quickly and ended up in a decent psychological (“spiritual”) place. But I had not listened or read well enough and I did not keep up the Step work, only going to two meetings a week and doing nothing else.

I declined very quickly. I feared financial insecurity. I would need a drink. I would deserve one. For three days I planned that drink. Not once did it cross my mind that there was any risk. It was as if half my mind had gone on holiday. I looked at my bank accounts, had the drink, then drank pure spirits non-stop for eleven days. A neighbour came and rescued me and got me a home detox. Two days into the detox, and feeling good, I lost the use of my legs for twelve hours. That scared me. A lot.

Then I had an idea! Work on the Steps every day. That worked like a miracle. I’ve had no troubling desire to drink since that moment. These have been the happiest three years of my life. I am mostly retired now, though I still pursue my research. I have returned to some activities of my youth: writing poetry, working with clay, going to concerts (mostly rock, mostly heavy metal, punk and hippy music). With my ears open and my attention directed outward, I enjoy music more than I ever did before.

And I work for AA in various administrative and public information roles. I enjoy that too, genuinely glad to be of service. I feel it is an honour and a privilege.

I am free of the discontent from which I suffered for fifty-odd years. I try to live in the real world now, rather than fantasy worlds of my own creation. The world is my higher power and I am content being who I really am, in it as it really is. Through meditation I can be at one with the flowers and I can find serenity without anaesthesia.

Since I don’t believe in miracles, I turned my mind to studying how the Steps work. From my academic point of view, the answer is simple, evident on a psychological reading of the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve (in my view, some of the finest psychological writing in existence), and largely vindicated by contemporary neuroscience. What causes relapse is emotional turbulence, which is caused by anger, resentment, fear, guilt, wounded pride, low self-esteem, envy, unsatisfied wants, existential angst and the like or by excessive elation. These cause a release of a specific hormone (corticotropin-releasing factor) that sends the dopamine system into overdrive, causing a strong desire to drink and at the same time impairing thought and memory. (That’s my theory, anyway!).

Through inventory, sharing, making amends, meditation, helping others and trying to do the right thing, let go and leave the rest up to nature, I have learned how to calm my emotions, to accept others and feel accepted by them, to feel connected to the world and the sentient, feeling beings in it, to feel worthy of my place in the universe.

Emotional turbulence (the cause of stress and relapse) is caused by unmanaged, misdirected, over-active instincts. And what keeps instincts at bay are humility and spirituality, as I understand it: the opposite of self-will, self-seeking and self-absorption. As the result of the Steps, I have had a spiritual awakening.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post Spirituality as I Understand It first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Spirituality as I Understand It

Chapter 11:
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

Gabe S.

I showed signs of what I think of as “spiritual malady” from as far back as I can remember.

As a child, I was absorbed in fantasy. I was the God of my own fantasies, creating worlds at will. In those worlds I was whatever I fancied: a great warrior, or footballer, or rock guitarist. Often I was a superhero. I fantasized because I was not happy to be who I really was in the world as it really was.

The ambient world was actually very good to me. My family was well off and we lived in a leafy, desirable part of London. My parents were loving and kind and very liberal. But they did not let just anything go and taught me right from wrong. I have two much older brothers. One was nice enough, though a bit distant. The other was loving. They were (and still are) extremely successful at pretty much whatever they do: top of the class, head of school, best at sports and so on. The loving brother often played games with me. He always won. My mother from time to time voiced the view that, in this way or that, I would never be as good as them. I felt very inadequate. For some reason, when I was six, I was sent to a psychoanalyst who told me that I wanted to kill my brothers and my parents. I think that as a result of this, I felt that I was horrible inside. I was the worst of possible beings. I carried a terrible secret.

Growing up (or rather failing to do so) in the 1960s, the hippy-drug culture was all around. At about seven, the idea of taking drugs took root. Drugs represented an escape from reality, and an alternative lifestyle that appealed greatly. I went into denial even then. There was plenty of publicity that I saw and heard, saying: “Drugs are dangerous. They can ruin your life or kill you. You could become an “addict”. “Don’t do them!” This had no effect on my thinking. I had no fear. I began inhaling solvents at about ten. Then, aged fourteen, I started smoking marijuana. I quickly became a daily user and a true addict, with craving and obsession. I took whatever drugs I could find and afford.

I left home at sixteen, went to live in a squat and pursue the hippy lifestyle. I remember one time I took some LSD and went to a park. I tried hard to be at one with the beautiful flowers.

I got bored with drugs and with the hippy life and lucked my way into a good university. I received scholarships for a Master’s and then a PhD. I excelled. My confidence grew along with my self-esteem. But however much I received, it was not enough. Inside I was always inadequate.

I coped with some of my inner violence by training hard at Kung Fu. I enjoyed the aesthetic qualities, the endorphin high, the fighting and smashing things. I became skilled, tough and physically confident. Inside I remained inadequate.

I had always liked drinking and, as soon as I stopped the drugs, I began to drink more. I drank nearly every day for about thirty years. A lot. I liked drinking. I am sociable and always found heavy drinkers or alcoholics to drink with. I also had a great fondness for fine wines, gins and whisky.

When I was thirty three, I met a great woman. She was intellectual, cultured, charismatic and a good pool player. She was also very beautiful. We fell in love, more or less at first sight. After two years, we married. The passion wore off and after seven years we divorced. My part in the failure of the marriage was not, I think, the drinking in itself. It was the fact that alcohol was much more important to me than she was. Alcohol was my true lover. I did not have much emotional space for any mere human.

A doctoral dissertation – “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” – is based on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

It became clear to those close to me that I was an alcoholic. They told me this and provided excellent evidence. It meant nothing to me. Eventually, my doctor sent me to a counsellor who tried to teach me controlled drinking. After six months of therapy, I learned to control my drinking. Every waking hour that I spent not drinking, I spent planning those fifty units a week. The control didn’t last long!

I began to drink in the mornings and throughout the day. I did not seek out sordid places. Instead I turned my nice apartment into one, as a more-or-less open house for the local street drunks and druggies. I enjoyed the company and liked the people. But it was chaos. The police were constantly called. I ceased to be popular with my neighbours.

Of my fellow bohemians from that period, three are now dead (two ODs and one liver failure), and one, having landed on his head one time while drunk, has lost the ability to speak and lives in a care home.

While I was still clinging to a job, my psychiatrist sent me to rehab. There I was introduced to AA. Brought up as a devout atheist, and knowing science and philosophy, I knew I was never going to believe in any God. It was not a question of willingness to believe. My mind works in terms of evidence and argument. It doesn’t do faith. The “God” talk in AA put me off. But I could see a lot of drunks getting sober. I found meetings difficult, boring, formulaic, and full of religion. I tried to listen to the similarities, not the differences, but I failed. I was too self-absorbed to listen to anything much, or to feel the emotional support in the rooms. And I did not relish the prospect of sobriety. I thought life would be dull and joyless at best.

After I left rehab I relapsed immediately. I went back in, came out, and relapsed immediately again. I lost my job. I ended up living a nightmare, terrified for my physical and mental health and my future, hardly able to feed myself, unable to do anything but drink. If I drank enough, I could experience brief periods of escape: a sort of serenity through anaesthesia. But also, when drunk enough, I would do dangerous things. Once I collapsed and my head collided with the corner of a large TV. I knew nothing of this until I woke up with a bloodied dent in my head and a TV on the floor. Another time, in a fury, I deliberately put my fist through a stained-glass window. I left a stream of blood on the floor as I staggered to my sofa and passed out.

I knew drink was destroying me. I was its slave. Without realising it, I took Steps One, Two and Three. That meant going back to rehab and for once doing everything that I was told (other than pray) without question or argument. My therapist gave me an atheist version of the Steps. I found an atheist sponsor. For Step Three, I elected a sort of advisory board: my sponsor, some people in AA, some outside. I turned all important decision-making over to them: I sought their advice and took it. This was a great experience for me: finally to stop running on self-will, to let go and go with the flow. I also learned to open my mind and my ears and listen at meetings. I have learned far more about myself from listening to other alcoholics than I did from many years of therapy. I like meetings now and I hear the similarities, not the differences. I know I am among people like me.

I did the Steps quickly and ended up in a decent psychological (“spiritual”) place. But I had not listened or read well enough and I did not keep up the Step work, only going to two meetings a week and doing nothing else.

I declined very quickly. I feared financial insecurity. I would need a drink. I would deserve one. For three days I planned that drink. Not once did it cross my mind that there was any risk. It was as if half my mind had gone on holiday. I looked at my bank accounts, had the drink, then drank pure spirits non-stop for eleven days. A neighbour came and rescued me and got me a home detox. Two days into the detox, and feeling good, I lost the use of my legs for twelve hours. That scared me. A lot.

Then I had an idea! Work on the Steps every day. That worked like a miracle. I’ve had no troubling desire to drink since that moment. These have been the happiest three years of my life. I am mostly retired now, though I still pursue my research. I have returned to some activities of my youth: writing poetry, working with clay, going to concerts (mostly rock, mostly heavy metal, punk and hippy music). With my ears open and my attention directed outward, I enjoy music more than I ever did before.

And I work for AA in various administrative and public information roles. I enjoy that too, genuinely glad to be of service. I feel it is an honour and a privilege.

I am free of the discontent from which I suffered for fifty-odd years. I try to live in the real world now, rather than fantasy worlds of my own creation. The world is my higher power and I am content being who I really am, in it as it really is. Through meditation I can be at one with the flowers and I can find serenity without anaesthesia.

Since I don’t believe in miracles, I turned my mind to studying how the Steps work. From my academic point of view, the answer is simple, evident on a psychological reading of the Big Book and the Twelve and Twelve (in my view, some of the finest psychological writing in existence), and largely vindicated by contemporary neuroscience. What causes relapse is emotional turbulence, which is caused by anger, resentment, fear, guilt, wounded pride, low self-esteem, envy, unsatisfied wants, existential angst and the like or by excessive elation. These cause a release of a specific hormone (corticotropin-releasing factor) that sends the dopamine system into overdrive, causing a strong desire to drink and at the same time impairing thought and memory. (That’s my theory, anyway!).

Through inventory, sharing, making amends, meditation, helping others and trying to do the right thing, let go and leave the rest up to nature, I have learned how to calm my emotions, to accept others and feel accepted by them, to feel connected to the world and the sentient, feeling beings in it, to feel worthy of my place in the universe.

Emotional turbulence (the cause of stress and relapse) is caused by unmanaged, misdirected, over-active instincts. And what keeps instincts at bay are humility and spirituality, as I understand it: the opposite of self-will, self-seeking and self-absorption. As the result of the Steps, I have had a spiritual awakening.

Do Tell! [Front Cover]This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

The post Spirituality as I Understand It first appeared on AA Agnostica.

MY program, not THE program

By Russell S

In 1957, in Alcoholics Anonymous Comes of Age, Bill Wilson wrote: “The A.A.’s Steps are SUGGESTIONS [emphasis added] only. A belief in them as they stand is not at all a requirement for membership.”

The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is full of suggestions; there are no demands, commands or orders.

In chapter 2 of the big book “There is a Solution” the authors state “This should SUGGEST [emphasis added] a useful program for anyone concerned with a drinking problem”. In chapter 5 “How it Works”, arguably the most important and quoted chapter of the big book, the authors reiterate “Here are the steps we took, which are SUGGESTED [emphasis added] as a program of recovery”.

Despite there being no rules per se, I personally found the big book to be extremely patronising and condescending. It is full of religiosity and devoutness and I simply do not find the fundamental rhetoric written by (ex-)drunk(s) in 1938 in anyway useful to me. THE program is well defined, there is no wiggle room:  “Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program…” This says to me that “THE program” is the only way. Which means that it is hardly a suggestion.

Advances in the knowledge of and the treatment of the disease of alcoholism and addiction since 1938 are significant and there are many wonderful and helpful resources to discover. That said, I am not a pugnacious big book basher; I do know it has helped thousands of people to get sober which is, after all, the crucial issue and the primary purpose.

Although AA is perceived to have no “rules”, the rehab where I received my initial treatment and where I got clean definitely did. On the wall was the serenity prayer, “let go and let god”, “one day at a time” and “THE program works if you work it”. They advocated five tenets that were drilled into me:

  1. Go to meetings (90 meetings in the first 90 days out of rehab)
  2. Discover a higher power
  3. Find a sponsor
  4. Do the steps
  5. Do service

Clearly, item 2 was a huge obstacle for me. I have been an agnostic/atheist/freethinker all of my adult life.  I discussed this concern with my counsellor who told me not to worry, just “fake it till you make it”. Strange and contradicting advice from the same individual that was constantly demanding “rigorous honesty” from me. I was, to say the least, extremely confused.

Then I was given the goal to “find a sponsor by Friday”. Choosing a sponsor, for me, was a daunting task as back then as I did not cope well with rejection. In early recovery I was impressionable, susceptible, bewildered and did not have the cognitive decision-making means that I have today. Back then, my desperation was compelling me and I attentively listened to sharers at the meetings we attended. I was very weary of meeting attendees that attributed all positive events to their higher power or some other supernatural presence in their lives. And anyone who said “by the grace of god” or mentioned a “miracle” was off my list too.

Eventually, I did find someone who I could relate to and that matched well with my way of thinking.  After a few one-on-one meetings with him, we started to talk about the steps. The discussions were thought provoking and vibrant. I told him that I have difficulties with the traditional AA steps in respect of what they portray to me, specifically the first 10 steps:

  1. Powerlessness
  2. Insanity
  3. Submission
  4. Immorality
  5. Confession
  6. Defectiveness
  7. Weakness
  8. Malicious intent
  9. Restitution
  10. Self-criticism

The last two steps 11 and 12, except for the praying and spiritual awakening bits, are well meaning and I have no issue with meditation and helping others; in fact I actively engage in and highly recommend these actions.

We looked around on the Internet and found many secular versions of the traditional AA steps online but the feeling I got was that they typically try to just rehash the existing 12 steps in a way that kind of sticks to the plot but changes a few “offending” words and phrases. For me the plot is where my issues begin.

I find the steps so very negative and totally unhelpful to me even without the supernatural mumbo jumbo. For me, I need positive reinforcement and practical ideas that are meaningful and make a difference in my life and help me to understand the weird wiring in my brain so I can self-improve, grow and be the best person that I am able to be. Of course, for me, that also means abstaining from drink and drugs and other destructive behaviours.

We decided that I should write my own steps. The steps I initially wrote for myself have transformed over the years as I myself have changed and grown as a human being, but the underlying essence is still the same. I do think that “MY program” needs to evolve as I grow and become a better version of my previous self. “MY program” is fluid and not a strict set of rules.

I start with step zero as the jumping off place – you can call it acceptance, acknowledgement or admission but actually it is just something I never knew before recovery. A humbling reminder that I don’t know what I don’t know.

0. It’s definitely not my fault, but I have a disease called addiction which if not kept in check will be fatal to me.

1. I am loved, loving and loveable and can get support from those who love me if I have the humility to ask for help.

2. I am intelligent, capable and able to control my perception of events and react to them responsibly.

3. I am not a bad person, but I have behaved badly and need let go of my resentments and fears, making apologies where necessary and attempt to live in the present moment.

4. I should always try to do my best at anything I undertake, taking special care to be exceptional when it comes to all my relationships.

5. The genuine, authentic version of myself is the finest version – I do not need to aggrandize, exaggerate or lie. Secrets make me sick and my ego is my enemy. What other people think of me is none of my business.

6. I treasure my serenity – honesty, love, humility, empathy, patience, gratitude and purposefulness are non-negotiable.

7. I can get un‑serene and it is important for me to spend time reflecting on myself and my inner growth by embracing stillness and being present.

8. I have a story to tell that can benefit others. Being of service to others resonates positively within me.

I then had a “sponsor” and steps I could call my own and actively pursue. I left the treatment centre with 2 of the 5 tenets checked off and proceeded to attempt 90 meetings in 90 days. In actual fact, I did more than the 90 as I was on some days attending 3 meetings AA, NA and SLA. It became my new social life as I avoided the perilous “people, places and things”.

But, I soon became disillusioned with the traditional meetings as most were intolerant of my lack of a higher power and my obvious non-participation in prayer. As my honesty, authenticity and confidence grew, so I became more outspoken and similar to my feelings of pre‑recovery days, I began to feel ostracised and that I did not fit in.

The zealots in traditional AA can be really off putting to new comers, especially to those who would prefer a less rigid approach to recovery. I am not talking about a “softer way” as referred to in chapter 5. I am talking about the inflexibility of the environment created by the bible punching, god squad and big book fanatics that tend to frequent the traditional AA meetings I have attended. Most with some sober time under the belt, those that might be referred to as “old-timers”.  They seem to be the self-appointed keepers of THE program and espouse that there is only one way to stay sober and that is their way – the big book way. The same old-timers I once heard refer to a busload of inpatients from the local rehab as “fresh meat”. The same old-timers that preach open-mindedness, tolerance and “live and let live” up and until you challenge their ways of doing things. The same old‑timers that told me that “if you don’t find a higher power you may as well go out and continue drinking until you do”.

The same old-timers that made me feel really out of place in traditional AA meetings. The same old‑timers that compelled me to ultimately decide to get out of traditional AA and co‑found the first secular meeting where I live and prompted me to discover the wealth of secular AA groups around the world. I have no resentments towards them. They are who they are and are doing what it takes to preserve their own sobriety. In an odd kind of way I am grateful to them for helping me find my own way to stay clean and sober – MY program.

I have chosen a secular and singular path for my recovery. I have no higher power, no sponsor and work my own version of the steps. I host a weekly online meeting and tend to only participate in secular meetings. I am also a member of the local AA treatment facilities group of sharers.

While I do know that many people have recovered using the big book and “the program” of Alcoholics Anonymous, for me it was important to take ownership of my recovery and work “MY program” as I do not believe there is a “one-size fits all” solution to addiction. Clearly there are many similarities to addicts’ experiences and as such, there will be recurring themes in recovery and common tools to keep us clean and sober.

I want to add that I am extremely grateful to AA – AA saved my life. If it wasn’t for AA, I would never have found many incredible people who have positively contributed to my recovery. My journey and experience is my own and has worked for me thus far and perhaps can help others of a similar ilk. The irony of it is, that in my own way all but the last, (“We will suddenly realize that god is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves”), of the AA promises have materialised in my life and I have got to know “a new freedom and a new happiness” and I now “comprehend the word serenity and know peace”.

I think the best way to conclude is actually with a quote from Bill W that can be found on many secular AA websites: “It must never be forgotten that the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is to sober up alcoholics. There is no religious or spiritual requirement for membership. No demands are made on anyone. An experience is offered which members may accept or reject. That is up to them.”

Russel is a 59 year-old alcoholic and addict whose active addiction began early in his teens. After a horrendous and terrifying rock bottom he  was duped into attending rehabilitation in 2015 and has been clean and sober ever since. He co-founded the first secular AA meeting, Secular Serenity, in Cape Town, South Africa in 2017 which remains his home group. He is a student of philosophy and enjoys writing poetry about his addictions and recovery. In his free time he enjoys serene activities such as motorcycling, scuba diving and deep sea fishing.

 

The post MY program, not THE program first appeared on AA Agnostica.